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No evidence of VoIP cannibalization of Voice – Airtel India CEO Gopal Vittal

"There is still no evidence that suggests that there is cannibalization," Gopal Vittal, Joint MD and CEO (India & South Asia), for Bharti Airtel said on the companys earnings conference call, when asked about whether data (Mobile Internet) is cannibalizing their voice business. Vittal pointed towards cannibalization on SMS (by messaging apps), but mentioned that the contribution of Internet Telephony (VOIP) "at this point in time is very, very tiny. And so it is not really material as we look at it." Expects TRAI to address a potential future problem However, the company expects regulatory support to address a potential future problem: "There is an arbitrage between voice pricing and data pricing and clearly as an operator we are expected to roll out networks and incur a lot of CapEx on it, we believe there must be some kind of a framework by which we are not disadvantaged in terms of our core source of revenues and that is the context in which the consultation will hopefully take place," he said, referring to the impending TRAI consultation on determining a revenue sharing relationship between telecom operators and Internet companies, which, in our opinion, would legitimize violation of net neutrality. There were conciliatory words from Vittal on working with the Internet ecosystem, acknowledging that Airtel would not have a data business without the Internet ecosystem, and that "we have several partnerships of all kinds on content applications and are opening up APIs and exclusive device alliances and so on and so…

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Founder @ MediaNama. TED Fellow. Asia21 Fellow @ Asia Society. Co-founder SaveTheInternet.in and Internet Freedom Foundation. Advisory board @ CyberBRICS

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